A well-established way for businesses to provide customer service is by offering a customer service contact center. Modern contact centers typically include a telephone call center, an automated call response system, an online “chat” system, an email response system, or a combination thereof. Such contact centers typically operate with a combination of live-agents and automated systems.
Contact centers tend to have three major variables in their organization and operation. First, size and live-agent distribution can vary greatly. Contact centers can be at a centralized location with all of the live-agents working in the same building or on the same floor, or they can be decentralized, employing home-based live-agents. Contact center sizes range from a handful of live-agents to tens of thousands of live-agents. Second, contact centers can be simple and straight forward or very complex. Finally, contact centers can be either voice-only or they can be fully omni-channel deployments, enabling customer contact through, for example, telephone, online video sessions, text messaging, online chat, and email.
Existing contact center technology tends to suffer from the same set of problems and obstacles. First, contact center systems tend to operate largely in isolation and share data reluctantly and at high cost between systems. For example, CRM systems are customer relationship management platforms. The goal of the system is to track, record, store in databases, and then organize the information in a way that increases or improves customer relations. The CRM codifies the interactions between a business and its customers so that the business can maximize sales and profit using analytics to give the users as much information on where to focus their marketing and customer service to maximize revenue and decrease idle and unproductive contact with the businesses' customers. CRM software can also be used to identify and reward loyal customers over a period of time.
While many businesses have CRM systems, they are typically separate from the interaction workflow and are not automated to utilize customer data gathered from external sources. Instead, live-agent customer service representatives normally have to access separate applications or systems, outside of the interaction workflows within the CRM. This can result in customers not receiving prompt service, or not allowing customer service representatives to provide the types of customized and personalized service that CRM systems are designed to facilitate. Thus, there is a need to fully integrate CRM systems with call center systems.
Second, real-time data access is limited because information collected during customer interactions is collected and stored thru highly specialized and technical interfaces, the use of which requires a high level of knowledge and programming on how to extract data from each system type and pass it to another system type.
Traditionally computer telephony integration, also called computer-telephone integration or computer-telephone interactivity, or CTI, is a common name for any technology that allows interactions on a telephone and a computer to be integrated or coordinated. Today the term is generally used for, not only telephone calls but also Chat, SMS, Email, and other interaction types (Social, Video Chat, etc.). It is predominantly used to describe desktop-based interaction, integration or interactivity for helping users be more efficient, though it can also refer to server-based functionality such as automatic call routing.
In contact centers that provide integration between a telephone system and an agent's desktop, a screen pop is a window or dialog box that autonomously appears on the desktop, displaying information for a call simultaneously sent to that agent's telephone. The data displayed typically contains call information such as: (a) Caller ID (CID); (b) Automatic number identification (ANI); (c) Dialed Number Identification Service (DNIS); (d) Information entered from an Interactive voice response (IVR) system; and (e) extended information derived from one of the above. For example, the CTI system may be programmed to look up, in an external database, an order number the customer just entered and then display that order's information to the agent. Although prior art systems are sometimes able to provide such data extraction and passing, it is difficult and expensive to achieve, because it must be programmed by CTI programming specialists, rather than by customer service center managers who are knowledgeable about the needs of their customers and the specific information needed by live-agents in order to make the customer interaction more effective, more appealing to the customer, and shorter.
Third, the Application Programming Interfaces (API's) of each system in a contact center are unique, and require specialized knowledge to use these API's. Additionally, most current API's in the contact center environment utilize traditional program development models. In turn, this necessitates that a contact center utilize the services of a skilled Computer Telephony Integration (“CTI”) programmer when new contact centers are set up, or when changes are made to systems or live-agent customer service scripts or workflows.
These workflows are typically generated, in prior art systems, using formal programming languages and are programmed by CTI programmers. The services of such programmers are costly, can be error prone, take significant amounts of time to perform and the results are often limited in functionality, flexibility and compatibility. One cause for such drawbacks is that such programmers are often primarily concerned with the technical aspects of the workflows, but have little hands-on familiarity with the day-to-day needs of a live-agent customer service representative, or the demands of contact center managers who are experienced in providing customer service. On the other hand, customer service agents, contact center managers, or CRM administrators typically have little skill or familiarity with how to write code or create a CTI integration. Therefore, to develop a single customer service work flow often requires weeks of effort, coordination, and testing between a contact center manager and a CTI programmer, thereby costing thousands or tens of thousands of dollars and slowing the implementation of new customer service interaction workflows. Thus, there is a compelling need for a method, system or apparatus to make CTI programming easier to implement, thereby allowing non-programmers who have expertise with customer service to design and implement interaction workflows quickly and efficiently in order to reduce expense and rapidly address customer demands.
Fourth, contact center systems are typically composed of a complex array of hardware and software, each of which requires specialized knowledge to operate and integrate, and each of which has its own technical challenges and idiosyncrasies. Such hardware and software elements include, for example, ACD's, PBX's, IVR's, CTI Interfaces, CRM systems, Virtual Agent systems, Social Media Channels and solutions, Chat and Email Solutions, and Video Channel Solutions. As a result, there is a need for a solution that integrates with the complex array of hardware and software, but that abstracts a user's interaction with those complex systems so that data integration and programming is simplified.
A private branch exchange (PBX) is a telephone exchange or switching system that serves a private organization and performs concentration of central office lines or trunks and provides intercommunication between a large number of telephone stations in the organization. The central office lines provide connections to the public switched telephone network and the concentration aspect of a PBX permits the shared use of these lines between all stations in the organization. The intercommunication aspect allows two or more stations to establish telephone or conferencing calls between them without using the central office equipment.
Each PBX-connected station, such as a telephone set, a fax machine, or a computer modem, is often referred to as an extension and has a designated extension telephone number that may or may not be mapped automatically to the numbering plan of the central office and the telephone number block allocated to the PBX.
Automatic number identification (ANI) is a feature of a telecommunications network for automatically determining the origination telephone number on toll calls for billing purposes. Modern ANI has two components: information digits, which identify the class of service, and the calling party billing telephone number. ANI is not related to newer caller ID services such as call display.
Dialed Number Identification Service (DNIS) is a service sold by telecommunications companies to corporate clients that lets them determine which telephone number was dialed by a customer. This is useful in determining how to answer an inbound call. The telephone company sends a DNIS number to the client phone system during the call setup. The DNIS number is typically 4 to 10 digits in length. Any DID (Direct inward dial) number will have a DNIS. This is the number sent from the central office to the PBX or key system, telling the telephone system which number was dialed.
For example, a company may have a different toll-free telephone number for each product line it sells. If a contact center is handling calls for multiple product lines, the switch that receives the call can analyze the DNIS and play an appropriate recorded greeting. A company may also use multiple toll free numbers for multilingual customer support, for which each support language is associated with a dedicated toll free number.
An automatic call distributor (ACD) or automated call distribution system, is a platform or system that distributes incoming interactions to a specific group of terminals or agents based on customer need, type, and agent skill set. It is often part of a computer telephony integration (CTI) platform.
Routing incoming interactions is the task of the ACD system. ACD systems are often found in offices that handle large volumes of incoming interactions from customers who have no need to interact with a specific person but who require assistance from any of multiple persons (e.g., customer service representatives) at the earliest opportunity.
The ACD system consists of hardware for the terminals and switches, phone lines, and software for the routing strategy. The routing strategy is a rule-based set of instructions that tells the ACD how interactions are handled inside the system. Typically this is an algorithm that determines the best available employee or employees to respond to a given interaction. To help make this match, additional data are solicited and reviewed to find out why the customer is communicating. As an example sometimes the customer's caller ID or ANI is used; more often a simple IVR is used to ascertain the reason for the call.
Originally, the ACD function was internal to the Private Branch Exchange of the company, and voice centric. However, the closed nature of these systems limited their flexibility. Later ACD systems were then designed to enable common computing devices, such as server PCs, to insert data into routing decisions and to provide external data into the routing engines to handle other communications channels. For this, generally the PBX would issue information about incoming calls to this external system and receive a direction of the call in response.
An additional function for these external routing applications is to enable CTI. This allows improved efficiency for call center agents by matching incoming phone calls with relevant data on their PC via a screen pop.
Such contact centers typically have one or more physical locations with a number of live-agents for answering and responding to the communications of customers with questions or problems. Customer service contact centers also often include an automated component, an example of which is an “interactive voice response” (“IVR”) that uses pre-recorded questions and menu options to provide an initial level of customer service and to gather information from the customer about the purpose of their interaction, their account number, etc. Often, if an IVR system is unable to satisfy a caller, the caller will select menu options to speak to a live agent customer service representative.
When such a selection is made, the customer service interaction is transferred to a live agent customer service representative, either located in a contact center, or handling interactions remotely. Normally, the live agent customer service representative has a computer workstation with a display and keyboard. When the interaction is transferred to the agent, her screen is populated with a series of scripts, questions, and/or information for her to interact with and assist the customer. These are known as “screen pops.” Over time, data only “screen pops” have evolved to presenting data on targeted application pages in addition to informational agent “screen pops.” These are more formally known as “interaction workflows.”
Fifth, because of this complex mix of elements, contact centers face a regularly changing solution matrix, in that each of these elements and solutions have a limited and planned lifecycle and are therefore prone to periodic replacement to reduce costs and enhance functionality. Such hardware and software changes commonly require reprogramming or at least modification to existing programs in order to maintain the same or similar level of functionality for the live-agent workflows. As such, there is a need for an integration solution that enables live-agent workflows to be maintained and enhanced, even as underlying hardware and software of the contact center is changed.
Sixth, business processes are constantly changing which can cause costly integration efforts between solutions to be discarded. This is sometimes as a result of continuous process improvement, and sometimes as a result of corporate mergers and acquisitions. This calls for a solution that enables simplified and efficient changes to live-agent workflows and system components.
Seventh, because of the complexity of the integrations and the dynamic environments within which contact centers exist, it is common that information about a customer that has been collected through an IVR system is not transferred with the interaction when the live-agent picks up the phone.
In prior art systems, integration and information flows between a communication platform, interaction workflow/screen pop software, automation platform, and CRM systems, is poor or nonexistent. Moreover, changing or upgrading one component of a system often makes integration and information flows between the systems unworkable or causes failures of previously integrated systems. This often results in a failure to communicate important information—including information that was previously collected during the interaction by automated means—to a live-agent customer service representative that accepts an interaction or has an interaction transferred from another agent. As such, nearly everyone who has communicated with a customer service contact center has had the unpleasant experience of entering data into an automated system (such as an account number), only to be asked to repeat the same information when their interaction is transferred to a live-agent, or a higher-tier customer service agent. Such problems reduce the quality of customer service, result in customer frustration, and prolong customer service issues, all of which result in higher costs to provide customer service.
As a result of all of these factors, the efficiency and effectiveness of how the contact center meets the needs of the customer is frequently impacted and degraded from the optimal promise of these systems. This has a direct negative impact on the customer experience and the amount of time necessary to resolve any given customer service issue.
The amount of time that a live agent customer service representative must spend in order to gather information and address the reason for a customer's contact is important for several reasons. First, if the interaction takes too long, the customer will grow frustrated, often defeating or reducing the good will that can be generated by promptly and efficiently dealing with a customer service interaction. Second, because live-agent customer service representatives are typically paid by the hour, the number of interactions that each agent can handle in an hour has a direct relationship to the expense incurred to provide contact center customer service.
Accordingly, there is a need for a system, method and apparatus that overcomes these drawbacks and disadvantages.